Canes reel in Gainesville High corner Davis

For those of you looking for the first signs of recruiting success after UM's 3-1 start, here you go: Gainesville High cornerback Devont'a Davis decided about an hour ago he wants to be a Miami Hurricane.

"My family just really wanted me to wait things out, see how I felt, make sure I was making the right decision," said Davis, who had been flirting with the idea of committing to UM since teammate and star linebacker Kevin Nelson committed to the Canes two weeks after school ended in June.

"I'm a Hurricane now. I feel like Florida missed the boat on me. I'm always going to be a Gators fan. But I'm wearing orange and green from now on."

The Gators never formally offered Davis, who passed on offers from FIU, Arkansas, UCF, South Carolina, Iowa State, Rutgers and Tennessee to pick UM. Davis, who said he has four interceptions and 35 tackles this season, is rated a three-star recruit by both Rivals and ESPN.com.

Gainesville High coach Ryan Smith said Davis is also averaging 35 yards on kickoff returns and said the Canes are getting a player who did an outstanding job shutting down Ocala Trinity Catholic's Kadron Boone, a four-star recruit headed to Texas Tech, earlier this season.

"If you look at him, he looks like my cousin Demarcus [Van Dyke]," Nelson said. "He's 6-2, got long arms. He's a tall corner. He plays with a lot of passion. He can hit even though he's between 170 and 180. He can tackle, he can catch. He's gotten way better from last year. All summer when we were in workouts, all he would talk about was that Trinity Catholic game. He said all summer he was going to shutdown Kadron Boone. I said OK, tighten up. He came into that game and shut him down. He held him to 59 yards receiving on six catches. Normally, that man goes for 100, 200 yards. [Davis] can play."

The commitment is the 19th for the Canes, who are looking to sign between five to seven more players. One player counted in UM's class is a silent commitment.

Davis and Nelson are the first two players UM has recruited from Gainesville High since Clinton Portis. Davis told me Portis visited his alma mater this summer and talked to the players about the benefit of playing for UM.

> For those of you clamoring about the Gators getting commitments this weekend from Booker T. Washington defensive end Lynden Trail and receiver Quinton Dunbar, I was told by two UM sources the Hurricanes turned Trail down when he tried to jump on the bandwagon two weeks ago and Dunbar stopped being recruited after he decommitted from UM this summer.